happy birthday united states!

Monday, July 30, 2012

For my favorite holiday this year (the fourth of July) we kept it pretty low key with a grill-out dinner at home with some sparklers and snappers in the backyard. Thanks to pinterest, we practiced safety with our sparkler use and our whole family got the benefit of listening to me belt out the national anthem and America the Beautiful on repeat. They love me, hah.

My Mum, Uch, and Kevin all came over since we were hoping to catch a glimpse of all sorts of fireworks in surrounding areas from atop our mountain, but alas it didn't go as planned. We sure heard a lot of fireworks, but didn't get to see more than a few flashes of them. We made good use of our night together though by putting on rave-worthy sparkler shows and a fairly impressive A Capella version of Katy Perry's Firework.

To cap the evening off, we enjoyed an ice cream sandwich (with red,white,&blue sprinkles) cake topped with a sparkler candle. Booboo led us all in 'Happy Birthday to America,' and I got teary-eyed about how lucky my babies are to grow up in the land of free and the home of the brave.

Since we live on top of our little mountain between two airports and near the military base, we have 6 or 7 helicopters fly over head daily (that's not including the parade of airplanes that pass us by), it is a daily reminder to me of how grateful I am that my kids call this place home. My babies hear those choppers and lift their little faces to the sky to smile and wave. I know there are children in other parts of the world that hear that same noise and run or hide out of fear of danger. The sight of my kids smiling and waving with no fear, only excitement, at the sound of those helicopters every single day reminds me to be grateful that this is the place we call home.